THE WORLD AT YOUR BACK

“If you’re bipolar, your life has no continuity anymore. The illness has wrecked your past, and it looms over your future even more threateningly. The life you knew is made more impossible with every manic episode. The person you think you are and know has no firm ground under their feet any more. You literally can’t be sure of your self. In this short-circuited, manic state, what otherwise would have only briefly flashed through your head before instantly being discarded instead becomes action. Everyone probably has a chasm in their soul, which they reveal occasionally. Mania is when you go on a tour through that chasm. Things you’ve known about yourself for years become invalid. You don’t just start again from scratch, like when you’re bank account’s empty. No, you go down below zero, you’re in the red. You’re no longer connected to anything in a reliable way.”
This book offers exceptional insights into what sufferers go through, offering an arresting chronicle of a disrupted, broken life.

A sparkling narrative and a radical autobiography
of extraordinary literary power.

THOMAS MELLE was born in 1975 and studied applied literary studies and philosophy in Tübingen, Austin, Texas and Berlin. His 2012 debut novel, Sickster , was nominated for the German Book Prize. 2014 saw the publication of 3,000 Euros , which was shortlisted for the German Book Prize. In 2015, Thomas Melle received the Berlin Arts Prize, awarded by the city in which he lives.